The dirty little secret about motivating employees

Participants in my management training programs often ask me how they can motivate their employees. Usually I throw the question back to the group and they generate motivational ideas, tips and techniques. Some are great, creative ideas on rewards and recognition — both important parts of keeping your workforce engaged and committed to excellence.

But then I drop the bomb: The “dirty little secret” about motivating others is that you can’t.

Everyone is self-motivated. If not, no one else can get us to do or stop doing. The only thing a manager can do is increase or decrease an employee’s motivation.

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So should we just give up and say “Whatever?” Of course not — here are a few ways you can increase employee motivation and encourage high performance:

1. Ask what motivates them

The same motivators won’t work for everyone. One employee may want more money, another recognition, while another would love two hours off to attend a child’s soccer match. So how do you know what to put up as a prize? Ask. But be truthful: Preface your questions with, “I may not be able to give you exactly what you want, but I won’t know unless I ask.”

2. Work with employee strengths

How long have you spent trying to correct or overcome an employee’s weaknesses? In today’s teamwork culture, that’s often counterproductive. I’m never going to enjoy — or excel at — creating spreadsheets, no matter how much training you put me through. Eventually I’ll become resentful and uninspired. There must be someone else on the team who not only is good at constructing spreadsheets, but takes pride in doing so, too. Let that employee handles Excel workbooks and use my strengths to fill another void.

Rapid. You shouldn’t wait a week — or two — to recognize success. Ideally, your appreciation should come within 24 hours of the accomplishment.

Specific. A general “thanks” is never enough, because often the person being thanked has no idea what he or she did. “You did a great job on X“ is specific enough to encourage repeating that behavior.

Organizationally related. Don’t fall into a habit of praising someone for a personal behavior. Don’t play the best friend: You’re the manager, so keep compliments job-focused.

To encourage and empower your staff to reach for excellence daily, you have to stop, look, and listen for opportunities to recognize great behavior. The employee you’re praising will feel great, and as an added benefit everyone else will want to be recognized, too. That’s the way to get your team to outperform the rest.

Laurie Glover is an organizational development professional with extensive international experience in corporate training, academia, and sales and marketing management. Glover is CEO of QSTS, a consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals move from “good” to “great” by igniting organizational excellence. The firm specializes in workplace learning programs on leadership, management and supervisory skills, and in programs for lawyers and accountants in building their practices.